Police officer involved in shooting in Laurel

UPDATE: Laurel Police Chief Tommy Cox said that even though some information regarding the names of the officer and the suspect in Friday's shooting involving his department was being disseminated, he would not officially confirm or deny the accuracy of that information.

"I'm protecting it (name of the officer) completely," said the chief. "I'm not comfortable releasing it at this time. I would not want to release the name of the officer for a while anyway. We're letting an outside agency conduct a parallel investigation. We'll do our internal investigation, and they will do their investigation, so we'll have outside eyes on us."

Chief Cox said standard procedure in an incident like this is to suspend the officer involved from duty with pay in order to make sure the officer is okay and to allow the investigation to run its course.

"These type things are always presented to a Grand Jury at the conclusion of the investigation," he noted.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation will present the findings of the investigation to the District Attorney's Office and a Grand Jury.

During an encounter with a suspect/driver there was an officer involved in a shooting, according to a press release from the LPD.

The suspect was injured and transported to SCRMC for treatment. LPD has requested the assistance of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and is cooperating fully in the investigation. No further information will be released at this time. Any persons with information about this or any other case are encouraged to call LPD at 601-399-4440 or Crime Stoppers at 601-428-STOP.